Historical instructor

SONG GAO

Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 4.71/5 from 28 quality ratings. The adjusted rating blends this with the UW review average (3.66/5), weighted as 20 additional ratings. Smaller samples stay closer to that average. Each captured review is counted once in the prior; this does not correct who chooses to leave a review.

RMP profile ↗ · All captured review dates; profile matched by name.

What students say

Original student reviews · all captured dates

GEOG 378
Quality 5/5Difficulty 3/5
Class is well organized and labs are successful tools to challenge students and learn the material. I appreciated the specificity of this course to geography, particularly the real-life examples in labs and connections to previous GIS knowledge.
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GEOG 378
Quality 5/5Difficulty 4/5
Professor Gao is a genuinely compassionate teacher. For some similar 'esoteric' courses in the past I've had professors get annoyed by more fundamental questions/when students are struggling to grasp a concept, but Professor Gao seriously valued every question I heard asked and gave encouraging and comprehensive answers.
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GEOG 378
Quality 5/5Difficulty 4/5
Song is very knowledgeable and talented, with strong geospatial industry experience. I enjoyed his lectures a lot. It is not easy to get A in his class as it requires programming and heavy labs. You need to make great efforts and practice more to achieve the best grade.
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GEOG 378
Quality 1/5Difficulty 5/5
This class is absolutely awful if you do not have prior CS experience. Having taken GEOG 377, I thought I would be prepared and I was dead wrong. The labs are astoundingly difficult (and I'm not dumb by any means, I literally had a 4.0, which this class ruined). Song is a terrible lecturer and I learned absolutely nothing in class.
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GEOG 573
Quality 5/5Difficulty 4/5
This was a good class; I enjoyed it and felt like I learned a lot. I was thankful that the course was taught using Python3 and Jupyter Notebooks. these are great tools to use for spatial analysis and this course improved my abilities to use them for geospatial analysis, particularly Pandas and GeoPandas.
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GEOG 573
Quality 5/5Difficulty 4/5
This was one of the most challenging classes I have taken but I feel more confident in my code writing and more prepared for my future career now because of it.
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Personal experiences, not a representative survey. Profile matching and captured coverage are shown in the source details.

Classes with SONG GAO

No teaching recorded in Fall 2026.

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Recorded teaching history

Distinct courses recorded per term

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Browse recorded courses
TermCourseTitle
Spring 2026COMPSCI 899Pre-dissertator Research
Spring 2026GEOG 573Advanced Geocomputing and Geospatial Big Data Analytics
Spring 2026GEOG 691Senior Thesis
Spring 2026GEOG 990Research and Thesis
Fall 2025COMPSCI 899Pre-dissertator Research
Fall 2025GEOG 378Introduction to Geocomputing
Fall 2025GEOG 560Advanced Quantitative Methods
Fall 2025GEOG 999Independent Work
Spring 2025GEOG 573Advanced Geocomputing and Geospatial Big Data Analytics
Spring 2025GEOG 699Directed Study
Spring 2025GEOG 970Seminar in Geographic Information Science
Spring 2025GEOG 990Research and Thesis
Spring 2025GEOG 999Independent Work
Fall 2024GEOG 990Research and Thesis
Fall 2024GEOG 999Independent Work
Spring 2024GEOG 990Research and Thesis
Fall 2023GEOG 699Directed Study
Fall 2023GEOG 990Research and Thesis
Fall 2023GEOG 999Independent Work
Spring 2023GEOG 573Advanced Geocomputing and Geospatial Big Data Analytics
Spring 2023GEOG 990Research and Thesis
Fall 2022GEOG 378Introduction to Geocomputing
Fall 2022GEOG 560Advanced Quantitative Methods
Fall 2022GEOG 699Directed Study
Fall 2022GEOG 990Research and Thesis
Spring 2022GEOG 573Advanced Geocomputing and Geospatial Big Data Analytics
Spring 2022GEOG 970Seminar in Geographic Information Science
Spring 2022GEOG 990Research and Thesis
Spring 2022GEOG 999Independent Work
Fall 2021GEOG 378Introduction to Geocomputing
Fall 2021GEOG 699Directed Study
Fall 2021GEOG 990Research and Thesis
Fall 2021GEOG 999Independent Work
Fall 2020GEOG 378Introduction to Geocomputing
Fall 2020GEOG 691Senior Thesis
Fall 2020GEOG 990Research and Thesis
Fall 2020GEOG 999Independent Work
Spring 2020GEOG 573Advanced Geocomputing and Geospatial Big Data Analytics
Spring 2020GEOG 682Senior Honors Thesis
Spring 2020GEOG 699Directed Study
Spring 2020GEOG 999Independent Work
Fall 2019GEOG 378Introduction to Geocomputing
Fall 2019GEOG 560Advanced Quantitative Methods
Fall 2019GEOG 681Senior Honors Thesis
Fall 2019GEOG 999Independent Work
Spring 2019GEOG 560Advanced Quantitative Methods
Spring 2019GEOG 675Special Topics in Geography
Spring 2019GEOG 699Directed Study
Fall 2018GEOG 378Introduction to Geocomputing
Spring 2018GEOG 560Advanced Quantitative Methods
Spring 2018GEOG 970Seminar in Geographic Information Science
Fall 2017GEOG 378Introduction to Geocomputing

Teaching history may be incomplete. Course pages contain course-specific feedback and citations.

Instructor identity & provenance 
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